Saturday, December 29, 2007

I have so few of these left that I am limiting whistles to one per customer. That means one brass OR one stainless. Not one of each, only one period. I want to give folks a chance who have not been able to buy anything from me before. So I will refund any orders for multiples.

Sorry to be that way but these are the last of any variety of the stainless whistles and the last of the brass with diamond knurl whistles. Neither will be made again. I will have a few more brass with rifle knurl coming in January and then that is going to be close to it for whistles. Maybe a couple more titanium ones will straggle in too if I can find time to finish them.

So, what does this mean for the future of whistles from Atwood Tool? They are going to be discontinued. I have made over a thousand of them in the past five years and it's time to move on. The shop that turns them for me is a pain to work with, the whistles are very expensive to make (and the costs are going up) and it's just time to move on.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Just wanted to give everyone out there a HUGE Thank You for all your kindness and support this year. People have been unbelievably generous with their praise and with their dollars. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my many loyal fans and I am feeling hugely blessed and deeply grateful. I raise my glass in a toast and I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season!

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all! :)

Friday, December 21, 2007

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970's I used to be fascinated by all the stories about the Bermuda Triangle. The UFO theories, the lost squadrons of airplanes, all the missing boats. It was cool stuff that tickled my curiosity and made me wonder if there was any truth to these kinds of mysteries or not.

What's not a mystery is this nifty new tool that I'm calling the Bermuda Triangle. Made of 5/32" titanium it is an equalateral triangle with 2 inch sides, a 3/4" Hex hole in the center, a 1/4" hex bit holder with O-ring, a minimalist cap lifter and a lanyard hole. These are really fun to spin between your fingers and I have not been able to stop fiddling with it since I made the first one.

I'm about to order a bag of the proper sized O-rings. The one on there now in the pictures is too big. There will probably be all kinds of delays because of Christmas so I don't expect to see the O-rings before Wednesday of next week. So I'd say these will be done and available around the end of next week. This is a smallish batch but will be more coming if the interest is there which I'm kinda thinking will be the case. :D

I made a very small batch of these recently and should have a few ready this week. Waiting on O-rings and bits to arrive from MSC. As you can see, I updated the first Bike Tool considerably. I added a second bit holder, one bit is 4mm and the other 5mm, and the two most common sizes of spoke wrenches on the lower V shaped area. I fitted a bottle opener along the lower edge with a 3/8" wrench opening (I know, 3/8" doesn't correspond to anything on a bike but at least it is an additional tool). I also added a second 1/4" hex opening on the upper corner of the tool so now the user has the option of a T handle driver or having the bit on the end for fitting into tighter spots. All in all I think it is a very cool tool. :) There are only about a dozen of these that will be available this go round but more are planned for after the holidays and also a variant non bike tool may appear.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

This is my favorite Prybaby so far. I scaled down the full sized Gasbaby just a hair and then removed the large acetylene tank wrench opening. The G2 treatment really makes these pop I think. :) I'll be finishing a small batch of them soon.

Look folks, I've asked before and it doesn't seem to do any good. Please don't run automatic software that checks my site a zillion times per day for updates. It runs up my bandwidth and causes my webmaster to chew my ears off. It's a waste of everyone's time to try to figure out who the perps are to either contact them or block them, whatever. I understand there's stuff out there that makes it very easy to do this especially for Mac users. I'm asking folks to please refrain so that I don't have to go through all the nightmare and expense of getting a dedicated server to handle the traffic. Thanks!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

In heat treat now, the new Termite Tool. This is the latest in the Captive Tool Bit series. I decided to combine the best features of of the CTB style tools with my Micro Bug Out Bar to create a tiny 3 inch Prybar tool.I will have a small batch available and a release date of either this weekend or early next week.